FEL

EXGLISH

ROYAL UNIVERSITY IRELAND, AX PROFESSOR O
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

STEPHEN'S GREEN, DIBLIX

ENOX LIBRALA

NEW YORK

1

PREFACE

TO

THE FIFTH EDITION.

This work remains what it was at first,

-a mere sketch or ground-plan of the vast field of English Literature ; but, as a sketch, the present edition will be found considerably less incomplete than those which have preceded it. Notices of more than two hundred additional authors have been incorporated, and articles which have hitherto been missing have been supplied, e.g. on the 'Paston Letters,' 'Eikon Basilike,' ' early Welsh literature,' &c. Many notices have been amended or remodelled, as those on Robert of Gloucester, Lydgate, Lamb, Cobbett, &c. Lastly, a new chapter, containing brief notes on many poets and novelists of recent times, or of the present day, has been added. In preparing this chapter I have been much assisted by my son William T. Arnold, the editor of Keats, and two of my daughters, Julia Frances and Ethel Margaret Arnold ; see notes to pages 445 and 451.

It is high time that the description of the rise and progress of literature in England should be undertaken on quate scale, and by a staff of writers duly qualified. The Histoire Littéraire de la France, commenced by the Benedictines of St. Maur and continued by the Institut, has reached its